The District Election Officer (DEO) in West Bengal asked 49 doctors at a state government hospital to join electoral duty by the end of March, before protests by medical authorities led to the order being scrapped, people familiar with the matter said.
According to the Election Commission’s guidelines, government hospital doctors are not usually assigned polling duties in parliamentary or parliamentary elections because medical staff, including doctors, nurses and emergency doctors, are classified as essential services and are generally not required to perform electoral duty.
In this case, nearly half of the hospital’s administrative staff was deployed for the polling process in West Bengal, said Ramprasad Roy, principal of the college.
The DEO, Hooghly, by the beginning of the second week of this month, had issued demand notices to 49 doctors at Government Medical College and Prafulla Chandra Sen Hospital in Arambagh, Hooghly district, directing them to act as presiding officers at polling booths.
The list included assistant professors and specialist doctors from the main departments. HT saw it through.
Khurshid Ali Qadri, the district magistrate, is also the anti-corruption director.
College principal Ramprasad Roy told HT that he formally opposes the move, warning of dire consequences for the hospital’s operations. “Deploying such a large number of doctors at one time will directly impact the outpatient clinics and other vital functions of the hospital,” Roy said. He added: “We are already working under a heavy patient load, and the absence of specialist doctors will affect emergency services and routine care.”
Government Medical College and Prafulla Chandra Sen Hospital in Arambagh is a government-run teaching hospital with a bed capacity of about 500. It serves patients primarily from Arambagh division of Hooghly district and adjoining areas, including parts of Paschim Medinipur, and caters to a large rural population of the district.
“Multiple written representations were submitted to the district authorities seeking exemption, but the initial response was not in favor of the hospital. The anti-corruption department agreed to withdraw the deployment of doctors only after persistent resistance. However, the administrative staff of the hospital continues to remain on electoral duty, leaving the institution overburdened on polling day,” Roy added.
A senior EU official said there was no precedent for government doctors to be appointed to chair roles in parliamentary or parliamentary elections.
District-level elections management operates under the supervision of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), who in turn reports to the Independent Electoral Commission. While DEO implements reconnaissance-related decisions locally, directives are issued by ECI through the Executive Director.
In the 2023 panchayat elections in West Bengal, the state Election Commission backed away from a similar move after protests by doctors unions.
Under standard practice, polling duties are assigned to school teachers and administrative staff, where temporary absences do not impact vital services.
Former Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat told HT that the move departs from long-standing electoral practices. “Emergency and essential services have always been exempt from election duty – this has been the norm in every election I have been involved in,” Rawat said. “This is the first time I have seen doctors deployed in this way, and this raises serious concerns.”
The Representation of the People Act enables anti-corruption offices to employ government employees, but Rawat said such powers have traditionally been exercised with safeguards. “There is a difference between what is legally permissible and what is practically appropriate,” he said.
Elections in West Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29, with the counting of votes scheduled to take place on May 4.
“In this case, the matter was handled at the DEO and CEO levels, and ECI headquarters did not receive any update on it,” the same senior ECI official said.
